Following on from ,’ not sitting outside’.

I hate them, hate the smell most, especially when the neighbours decide to have one at lunchtime whilst I still have washing on the line. If I don't get out quick enough everything reeks of smoke. And I've never understood the appeal of charred burgers.

Don't get the BBQ idea at all, cook it inside, then eat it outside, why drag the kitchen out to the garden?!

I'm not a fan of BBQs. I have to be careful what I eat and to me a BBQ is to be avoided if possible. Is it a male thing? Men seem to be the ones hovering over it. The only decent BBQ I've ever had was in Australia - where it is more the norm as the weather allows more practice I think!

I would rather a BBQ to a picnic ANY day! Now what is the point of THOSE???

I adore hosting BBQ's. husband is happy to BBQ for just us 2, or Sons, Daughter, in laws and Grandchildren. We have friends round for more formal BBQ's. Not a wine box, cheap sausage or shop bought burger in sight(smell). We marinade anything fish, meat or vegetables. Have 4/5 different salads, new potatoes (jersey royals at the moment). Asparagus, Aubergine and large flag mushrooms are so tasty cooked on BBQ. We still sit down to eat (large round table) on decking area (eco friendly as it is slightly raised and have had a fox family living under it in previous years) and have so many magical memories of BBQ's over the years with my parents and dear friends who have died, always toast them. I am determined to carry on with this al-fresco living/eating lifestyle as long as possible. We are in the South East so have fairly good weather this time of year.

I’m with Daddima on this. I hate hosting them. It’s mainly because it’s quite a walk from the kitchen to the only place that the barbecue can be sited. I traipse backwards and forewards with plates of stuff and never seem to sit down. When it’s all finally cooked,I don’t really enjoy it..
DH loves it of course. He’s in charge of cooking. It’s such a pity he can’t be persuaded to cook indoors because I would love to be made redundant from my ‘chef’ responsibilities!

Don,t like the smells that waft around into everyone else,s garden. As someone else said, if you don,t grab your clean washing inside it reeks. Not keen on barbequed food anyway. Would rather cook a meal indoors and take outside to enjoy in good weather.

Cooking well on a BBQ, just like any other culinary method is an art, and as such, takes some effort to learn how to do properly. Anyone can reduce sausages etc. to part-charcoal, and those of you who dislike the medium have perhaps been to BBQ's where the "chef" (usually Dad), has no idea what he's trying to achieve. My own BBQ's are always well prepared and planned out, and I've had many compliments from satisfied guests. For years now, I've even cooked up to a 16lb Christmas turkey whole in my Weber kettle BBQ, a procedure first shown to me by an American Air Force friend some 40 years ago when I was serving in Germany with H.M. Forces. Always with natural lumpwood charcoal, always deliciously moist, cooked to perfection, and it leaves the main oven free for all the other stuff. So yes, I'm a great BBQ fan, but it needs to be done right.

I love a good barbecue/Braai. There’s nothing better than being together with family and friends and eating the delicious food cooked on open flames. The bonus being it’s usually cooked by the men! The smell as it’s cooking is the best appetiser going.

My late MIL was raised in India and she hated the smell of barbecues as it reminded her of the burning ghats where bodies were cremated.

As indeed is what happens at BBQs.

Daddima Me. In response to "anyone else?" that is.

I hate the smell.

You are sitting outside peacefully absorbing the gift of a pleasantly scented warm Summer evening. There is something so heavenly about an English Summer evening! The birds singing their bed-time love songs, the flowers' fragrance delicate on the air. It is a balm to the soul! Then, crunch an assault on the senses, the nose hurts, eyes sting, a threatening vapour, first of spilled petrol or paraffin, then the smoke billows over. It hits your stomach and hurts your breathing. A migraine pain stabs through your eye.

Choking, you leave your once peaceful sanctuary and go indoors, the evening ruined, violently stolen from you .

Only later, on going to bed, you find that you left the window open and all your bedding and clothes smell of burnt flesh as if some evil human sacrifice is being performed and that closing the window is too late but doing so still does not reduce the beery bulging rise and fall of drunken laughter and shouting voices at the BBQ party down the road.

How can people desecrate Summer like this? What kind of people are they? Do they have no soul? No tenderness? No love of peace or appreciation for that joy in the heart that connects us to nature when we are in her gentle moments, being held more lovingly than a new baby, wrapped in the kindness of a balmy warm fragrant Summer evening?

If I lit a bonfire on a pleasant Summer evening, they would probably lynch me.

Excuse for the men to do the cooking? Mine burns everything so I gave up having them. Hours of marinating lamb kebabs, chicken tikka etc, all frazzled. Will never forget hearing my grandson saying ‘you’d better not let grandma see that’. They were ok about 20 years ago, now lost their appeal I think. And all that traipsing in and out clearing up afterwards?.

I can't see the attraction of BBQs either.... I don't like sausages or burgers, and I hate the smell and smoke from BBQs. Whenever we've had them (my husband and 2 adults sons like them), I've cooked chicken and salmon in the oven, and I've made a salad and a pasta dish as well as the usual stuff.

As a veggie, I loathe barbeques, the smell is horrible, and like watermeadow, have never been offered anything particularly yummy.

Agree don’t like BBQs, prefer food cooked indoors and taken outside to eat.

There are various ways of spoiling good food and IMO the barbeque tops the list!

I detest the smell - spent several years living in a block of flats where the BBQ was right under our bedroom window, and nothing any of us living on that staircase said persuaded the other residents to move the blinking thing down to the other end of the yard!

I hate everything about barbecues!

Used to love them. Luckily, we are isolated enough not to inconvenience neighbours. My husband was a dab hand cooking (in kitchen as well as bbq). No way would he permit boxed wine. Yes he “did the food” but somehow the meals also included home-made potato salads etc ( must have been a fairy around to prepare all that, deal with cutlery and crockery etc).
Sadly, he died 18 months ago and I would now give my right arm to be in the kitchen working while he was in the sun waving a spatula around with one hand and holding a glass in the other.
I got rid of the bbq last year knowing it would never be used again.

I'm with micmc47, cooking on a BBQ needs skill and practice. We also have a kettle BBQ (2 actually, one small one and a larger one for bigger groups), and use lumpwood charcoal. We have a BBQ lighting chimney, so no fire lighters needed. We have areas of the garden where we can sit at a table in dappled shade or sunshine and quietly cook the foods we enjoy without fuss. I'm very choosy about who cooks though, my DS cooked today and was very competent (I don't let my DH cook though, he struggles in the kitchen).
I have my feet up in the shade of a tree now.

I think a very good point is made by some, BBQ does require skill. If all you can smell is "burnt meat", then whoever is cooking, is doing it wrong. Also, a BBQ does not necessarily mean burgers and sausages. You can cook all sorts on a bbq, and it can be very enjoyable. As for vegetarians, offering a veggie burger is as considerate as offering a salad to a veggie guest. It is very easy to be a bit more imaginative than that!

Good job our bbq season is usually so short or wet, with all these grumpy anti bbq grans about.

So glad to have found this post. I was beginning to feel like a female version of Victor Meldrew. I absolutely detest BBQs. We wait forever for a nice day and the minute we get one someone lights a fire and pollutes the atmosphere with smoke and the stink of burning food. I have a neighbour who is currently blighting my life with this. I have to sit inside with doors and windows closed on stifling hot days to avoid having my whole house stinking.

I'm another BBQ hater. I don't like the smoke, the smell, the undercooked or burnt-to-a-cinder food, limp salads, paper plates, and cheap wine. I dread being invited to BBQs and would definitely never host one. I can easily burn food privately in an oven, why would I choose to do it in public! And then there's the cleaning of the b****y thing afterwards.

I am not keen on BBQs, but in the warm weather we BBQ our food most nights, then we have the meal of our choice, seldom hamburgers, sausages etc. It is usually only the two of us so its quite cosy a glass of wine or two completes the picture.

I must add we use a gas BBQ the charcoal ones do spoil things with the smell lingering for hours.